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The labor shortage and the Youth unemployment reduction They are two common problems to Many countries in Europebut also from the world in general. Norway is studying a formula to end both of a single blow: a fiscal lottery to encourage your young people Millenials and generation Z get to work.
The measure, which is raised as a large -scale experiment, could mark the way in the way in which countries address Youth employment.
A tax raffle for young people. Jens Stoltenberg, Minister of Finance, and Tonje Brenna, Minister of Labor, have put on the table an unorthodox fiscal measure to foster the employment among the youngest. Its plan consists in carrying out a raffle between the population between 20 and 35 years, in which 100,000 people will be randomly selected to receive a tax reduction of up to 27,500 Norwegian crowns per year, which is equivalent to about 2,512 euros.
According to He explained The Ministry of Finance, the objective is to analyze whether a reduction in the fiscal invoice can motivate young people to leave the well -being system and encourage them to find a job. “The Norwegian government wants more people to work and less people receive social benefits,” The minister declared to Newsweekadding that the initiative seeks to “gather more knowledge about the effects of a fiscal loan on work to assess whether it could be an effective measure to increase labor supply.”
Shortage of labor and low youth participation.As is other countries in the world, Norway faces a significant shortage of labor in several sectors. However, a considerable part of its youth is not incorporated into the labor market. According to data From the EURES European Labor Portal, only 60.3% of the Z generation in Norway has a job, which means that more than one in three young people is outside the labor market.
The last Active Population Survey DataA in Norway reveals a unemployment rate in April 2025 is 4.3%, (in front of the 11.36% of Spain), while the Youth unemployment Between 15 and 24 years it is 12.8%. The INE dataThey point out that youth unemployment among children under 25 in Spain is 26.53%.
The Norwegian experiment. The Norwegian proposal is raised as an experiment to study the effect of Fiscal incentives in employment policies. Therefore, the tax cut is raised as a tool that allows comparing the work behavior of young people who benefit from the fiscal exception to those who will not receive the incentive.
“This will provide us with solid data on whether this fiscal deduction really promotes youth employment and how much more or less will those who already have a job work,” said the Ministry of Finance in an official statement. Reuters He informed that the experiment will have a cost for the Norwegian coffers of about 500 million crowns per year (about 45.7 million euros), which will leave the Global Government Pension Fund (GPFG) that manages the income that the country obtains by the exploitation of its gas and oil deposits.
Debate on equality and redistribution. The measure has generated An intense debate In Norway, a country where equality and Redistribution of wealth Through taxes are fundamental values. The proposed fiscal cut will benefit only 8% of young workers, leaving the rest without changes, which has been criticized by some sectors as a source of inequality.
Despite criticism, the government defends the initiative as a necessary and temporary experiment, which will last between three and five years, and that requires the previous approval of Parliament. If approved, the results of the investigation could influence future policies to encourage youth employment. As the Ministry of Finance has indicated, “depending on the results of the trial, it could increase the probability of implementing a fiscal credit for wider labor, provided that it is effective. However, greater knowledge could also lead to definitively discarding if the experiment does not have the desired effect.”
Image | Unspash (Julian Zwengel, Alina Belogolova)
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